Learning outcomes

At the end of this course, students will be capable of:

  • Understanding of the role of operations management in a service context

  • Mastering of the tools, frameworks and techniques related to service operations management

  • Understanding and communicating the enablers of agile service operations

  • Analyzing and improving the operations of a service organization by applying the course concepts.

Goals

The objective of this course is to help students manage, from end to end, the operations required to deliver a service: formulating the service offering, understanding customer and supplier expectations, managing the delivery of services, and improving service operations

The course aims to convey the strategic and operational capabilities required to create a high-performance service organization while maintaining the flexibility necessary to compete in this dynamic sector. Therefore, students will master the role of agility in service operations. To this end, students will be required to communicate key concepts from agile service operations and apply them to a particular service organization.

Content

  • Part I. Framing Service Operations
    • Introduction to Service Operations Management
    • Agility in Service Operations
  • Part II. Service People
    •  Customer in service operations
    • People in service operations
    • Service culture
  • Part III. Delivering Services
    • Service supply networks
    • Designing the service process
    • Managing service performance
    • Service resources and capacity
  • Part IV. Improving Service Operations
    • Service improvement methods
    • Learning from other operations
    • Learning from problems
  • Part V. Agility in Services Operations (Reverse Classrooms)
    • Tools and Techniques
    • Organizational Design
    • People
    • Leadership
    • Culture
    • Scientific Papers
  • Part VI. External Invention and Business Case

 

Table of contents

  1. Introduction to Service Operations Management: Servitization, strategic vision of services
  2. Process analysis
  3. Capacity and queue management I: Matching supply with demand, queueing theory
  4. Capacity and queue management II: Application of queue management in services
  5. Revenue and Yield management I: Introduction to revenue management, newsvendor model and its applications
  6. Yield Management II: Single resource multiple classes capacity control, optimal solution, heuristics
  7. Yield Management III: Network capacity control
  8. Application of Revenue and Yield Management
  9. Designing new services: Discrete choice models
  10. Pricing services: Insurance pricing, moral hazard and adverse selection
  11. Procuring services: contract design
  12. Emerging trends

Assessment method

The knowledge gained from the course is evaluated in two ways, both counting for 50% of the final grade.

First, the presentation of the students’ groups during the reverse classrooms sessions is evaluated (50%). Students will be evaluated on:

  • The clarity and completeness in the content of the slides
  • The connection with insights from the ex-cathedra courses
  • The interactivity of the presentation
  • The use of illustrative examples
  • The answer to the questions

Second, the knowledge from the whole course is evaluated when students are expected to formulate recommendations, based on the course content, on a given business case. Their recommendations are presented and defended during the exam session in a group oral presentation (50%). The students will be evaluated one:

  • Understanding of course concepts
  • Depth of analysis
  • Critical thinking
  • Creativity and innovation of the recommendations
  • Practicality of recommendations
  • Presentation skills

 

Sources, references and any support material

Slides and additional scientific papers are available through webcampus

Readings:

  • Johnston, R., Schulver, M., Slack, N. & Clark, G. (2021). Service operations management: improving service delivery. Fifth Edition, Pearson Education.
  • Hesselberg, J. (2018). Unlocking Agility: An Insider's Guide to Agile Enterprise Transformation. Addison-Wesley Professional.

 

Language of instruction

Français